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If you've been paying attention to Barack Obama's campaign for re-election you may have noticed a recurring theme. While he hits the campaign trail, flashing his million-dollar smile and waving to the adoring crowds, his political hit men are engaged in one of the dirtiest campaigns in recent American history  a campaign where decency is no virtue and moral atrocities are no vice. Not if they help Barack Obama win re-election.

First it was Harry Reid's indecent act on the floor of the United States Senate about Mitt Romney not paying taxes in 10 years  an allegation made without so much as a scintilla of evidence to back it up.

It's one thing if a drunk in a bar makes some crazy, unsubstantiated accusation. But this was the leader of the U.S. Senate telling the American people "The word's out he (Mitt Romney) hasn't paid any taxes in 10 years. Let him prove he has paid taxes. Because he hasn't."

When asked how he knows this, Reid said he got the tip from a confidential source who had worked at Bain Capital. When asked who it was, Reid wouldn't say. And if a reporter asked Reid, how a confidential source  assuming one even existed  could possibly know anything about Mitt Romney's personal income tax returns, I missed it.

Decent people protested Reid's low blow. But the President of the United States wasn't among the decent people. He could have denounced Reid's slimy tactic. But he didn't say a word. And that's makes him complicit.

And when the president's friends were asked what they thought, they simply changed the subject to Romney's taxes. The president's press spokesman, Jay Carney, said this was a matter between Harry Reid and Mitt Romney.

Except that no one believes that Harry Reid was freelancing, that he woke up one day and said I think I'll go on the floor of the Senate and say that Romney hasn't paid taxes in 10 years. "The word's out" that the president's re-election team was pulling the strings on the back of their willing puppet.

At the time I thought this was as low as it would get during this campaign. But then came The Ad, produced and paid for by Priorities USA, a Super Pac supporting Barack Obama  and run by a former press spokesman for the president.

The ad  casually and incredibly  linked Mitt Romney to the death of a woman who had cancer.

In the video, 62-year old Joe Soptic looks right into the camera and says that Bain Capital shut down the Missouri steel mill where he had been working. He lost his job, his insurance … and his wife died.

The implication is clear: If Romney hadn't shut down the plant his wife might still be alive today.

This is not simply nonsense. It's despicable.

First, Mr. Soptic had been offered a buy-out; he wasn't simply told one day that he was fired. That's not in the ad.

Second, his wife was still working and had insurance with her job when her husband lost his. That's not in the ad, either.

Third, Mitt Romney left Bain in 1999, the plant closed in 2001, the woman was diagnosed with cancer in 2006  when Romney was in his fourth year as Governor of Massachusetts. None of that is in the ad.

So how is Mitt Romney even vaguely responsible for this woman's death?

It is the dirtiest political commercial I have seen in a very long time. But again the president remained silent. And again, his silence makes him complicit in this moral outrage.

It's important to remember that Barack Obama rode into Washington four years ago on a magic carpet made up of hopes and dreams and promises to make the national conversation less partisan and more civil.

It's tempting to believe that Mr. Obama has thrown his principles out the window in order to win. But it's becoming more and more clear that he never had the principles he sold us on. It's becoming more and more clear that Barack Obama is just one more crummy Chicago politician who will do whatever he has to in order to win. Somebody needs to tell the president that the White House isn't City Hall.

Mr. Obama's tactics, of course, may work. But if he wins re-election, he will be the president of a nation more divided than when he walked into the Oval Office four years ago. With his class warfare strategy, he has managed to turn Americans against each other. With his ally's dirty campaign ad, he has managed to make us more cynical than we were before he promised to make things better.

Barack Obama and the American people will have paid a high price for victory, if he wins. It's a price he's obviously willing to pay.

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JWR contributor Bernard Goldberg, the television news reporter and author of several bestselling books, among them, Bias, a New York Times number one bestseller about how the media distort the news. He is widely seen as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism. Mr. Goldberg covered stories all over the world for CBS News and has won 10 Emmy awards for excellence in journalism. He now reports for the widely acclaimed HBO broadcast Real Sports.

He is a graduate of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey and a member of the school's Hall of Distinguished Alumni and proprietor of BernardGoldberg.com.

Previously:

•08/07/12: Did You Know that Harry Reid Got Rich Pimping Out HOs?
•08/02/12: Like Birds on a Telephone Wire
•07/30/12: What Me Worry? YES!
•07/26/27: The Mystery Continues --- A Tale of Two Polls
•07/16/27: We've Set a Low Bar for 'Courage'
•07/11/27: Will Class Warfare Work?
•07/09/27: A Brave New World
•07/02/27: Now the Fun Really Starts
•06/19/27: You Can't Make This Stuff Up . . .
•06/19/12: I Would Have Fired Him Before He Got Back to the Office
•06/12/12: Time to Crush the Myth about Gender Pay Inequality
•06/06/12: The Desperate Campaign of Barack Obama
•06/01/12: Hey Fatso! Listen Up!
•05/25/12: Going After the Stupid Vote
•05/22/12: The X Factor(s)!
•05/15/12: Obama Has a Halo; Newsweek Has No Shame
•05/10/12: Authoritarians on Campus
•05/08/12: Obama's Path to Victory: Divide and Conquer
•05/01/12: President Cool Meets Reality
•04/25/12: Why Media Bias Matters
•04/17/12: NYT: At It Again
•04/13/12: Kissing up to the Rev. Al
•04/10/12: This Just In: War Breaks Out --- Thank You, Lord
•04/03/12: In Cold Blood?
•03/27/12: Trayvon Martin and Media Hypocrisy
•03/26/12: Time to Go, Rick
•03/22/12: Obama's Mantra: Don't Blame Me
•03/19/12: The U.N. Human Rights Council --- and other Jokes
•03/13/12: Bias in the News: Blame it on Their Zip Code
•03/06/12: Thank Heaven for Rich People --- a Second Look
•02/29/12: Some Free Advice for the Republican Field
•02/28/12: Do We Have a Right to Lie?
•02/16/12: Can Obama Win Re-Election by Promising Free Stuff?
•02/06/12: The 5 Stages of Mitt
•02/02/12: Florida Has Spoken; Cue the Fat Lady
•01/30/12: The Other Global Warming Story
•01/26/12: They See Racists Everywhere . . .
•01/24/12: The Arrogant and Clueless Mainstream Media
•01/23/12: Gingrich Wins SC --- Media Help Big Time
•01/18/12: A New Entry for 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America
•01/12/12: The Dream Ticket Could Be a Conservative Nightmare
•01/11/12: Now 'Anybody But Romney' Has a Name
•12/30/11: I Have a Confession to Make . . .
•12/27/11: Know When to Hold 'em and Know When to Fold 'em
•12/20/11: NBC News, the KKK and the State of Journalism
•12/19/11: Mitt and Newt: Two Rich Guys Arguing Over Money
•12/13/11: Donald Trump Is the Greatest; Just Ask Him
•12/12/11: Rob Peter to Pay Paul: Bad Economics! Good Politics?
•12/07/11: Yeah . . . and Fish Don't Know They're Wet, Either
•12/06/11: Did the Media Play Fair with Herman Cain?
•12/05/11: Obama to Blue-Collar America: Adios!
•11/29/11: We Can Stop the Crazy Train Before It Gets to Greece
•11/22/11: Who Can Beat Obama?
•11/15/11: The Dumbest Media Question I've Ever Heard
•11/09/11: What If Herman Cain Did It?
•11/08/11: What If Herman Cain Were a Lib?
•11/02/11: Who Can Beat Obama?
•11/01/11: We're Approaching the Tipping Point
•10/25/11: A Response to the Angry Purists
•10/18/11: They're Waiting for Reagan to Hit the Campaign Trail
•10/12/11: Read This!!! --- But Only If You Have Nothing Better To Do
•10/04/11: Can Obama Win Re-Election?
•09/27/11: It's NOT the Economy Stupid, It's Theology
•09/20/11: Bad News on the Doorstep
•09/09/11: Hypocrisy!
•09/06/11: Back to the Future
•08/24/11: Hillary vs. Obama in 2012? It'll Never Happen --- I Don't Think
•08/22/11: Warning: Conservatives May Be Harmful to Your Mental Health
•08/17/11: Warren Buffett, Coddled Billionaire
•08/11/11: Too Much Balance in the Media?
•08/04/11: All Aboard the Crazy Train
•08/01/11: Liberal Hate Speech
•07/25/11: With All Due Respect, Go Fly a Kite
•07/20/11: Who Is A Natural Born Citizen?
•07/18/11: Guess Who's Not Paying Their Fair Share
•07/12/11: Against More Taxes? You May Be a Terrorist!
•07/11/11: Casey Anthony: The TV Show
•07/06/11: Standards and Double Standards at MSNBC
•06/29/11: Is Jon Stewart A Racist?
•06/21/11: Let's Play the Race Card --- Just for Fun Of Course
•06/20/11: Sarah Palin and Weiner's Weiner
•06/03/11: Memo to GOP: Turn Mr. Obama into Mr. Yesterday
•05/20/11: I Get Letters From People Who Should Be Locked Up
•05/09/11: Is Torture Ever Justified?•05/02/11: The Promiscuous Use of the R Word•04/19/11: The Man Behind the Million Dollar Smile•04/12/11: What's the Difference Between Libs in Politics and Libs in the Media?•04/08/11: An Idea Whose Time Has Come  and Gone•03/28/11: The Pundits Are Driving Me Crazy --- And You Thought Qadaffi Is Nuts•03/14/11: No Liberal Bias at NPR  Just Ask NPR•03/10/11: The media's frustration •03/01/11: Progressives Lost in Time . . .•02/23/11: The Lamestreams Strike Again --- This Time in Madison•02/03/11: You MUST Own a Gun --- Or Else!•01/20/11: It Was Horrible, I tell you … HORRIBLE!•01/11/11: Here We Go Again . . .•01/06/11: You Go, Oprah•12/28/10: A Year-Ender --- The MSM and Obama's Fall from Grace
•12/14/10: Thank Heaven for Rich People